Hacker News: gh0stcat

New comment by gh0stcat in "2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March"

gh0stcat — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 20:18:33 +0000

New comment by gh0stcat in "GPT-5.4"

gh0stcat — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 15:21:16 +0000

Wait this is really funny, it still just does what it wants, no matter what:

You can have it not use bulleted points, I turned this on, thinking it would be more concise and not so... listy. However, it just uses the same format, without the bullets. I was confused why it was writing 5 word sentences, separated by line breaks. Then I realized it was just making lists, without the bullets.

Great job OpenAI!

New comment by gh0stcat in "How AI is affecting productivity and jobs in Europe"

gh0stcat — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 04:22:28 +0000

We always had the technology to do things better, it's the money making part that has made things worse technologically speaking. In this same way, I don't see how AI will resolve the problem - our productivity was never the goal, and that won't change any time soon.

New comment by gh0stcat in "My AI Adoption Journey"

gh0stcat — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 15:02:56 +0000

I thought this was a joke ie you need to be a billionaire to be able to use agents like this, but you are correct.

I think we need to stop listening to billionaires. The article is well thought out and well written, but his perspective is entirely biased by never having to think about money at all... all of this stuff is incredibly expensive.

New comment by gh0stcat in "TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe"

gh0stcat — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 14:25:34 +0000

It's bad I can't say that I did it with willpower alone but Brick helped immensely. Their product is great, not a subscription, and even though there are competitors or you could build something like this for your phone, they're good with customer service and I would recommend their product.

Also, Unhook for removing suggestions/comments/etc from Youtube, you can basically turn everything off until it becomes a search bar and your subscriptions.

Get a good website blocking browser extension. Remove anything that resembles a "recommendation" or avoid it like the plague.

https://getbrick.app/

New comment by gh0stcat in "TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe"

gh0stcat — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 14:22:42 +0000

I would say it's slightly worse but they're both not great, as someone who was addicted to being fed something at all times, I was really avoiding every having to spend time with myself if that makes sense. That being said, it's mostly about intention. Are you excited to finally listen to that amazing album or audiobook on your walk after work? That's usually more healthy than when I would scroll on tiktok during my day to avoid feeling anything other than dopamine and avoid bad feelings. It's really about self awareness for me.

New comment by gh0stcat in "Advent of Code 2025"

gh0stcat — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 13:08:22 +0000

I've found the best route at that point is just... copying people who are really good. For my interest (3d modeling) if you want voice-over and directions, those are all pretty basic, but if you want to see how someone approaches a large, complex object, I will literally watch a timelapse of someone doing it and scrub the video in increments to see each modifier/action they took. It's slow but that's also how I built some intuition and muscle memory. That's just the way...

New comment by gh0stcat in "Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts"

gh0stcat — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 16:56:02 +0000

I'm sorry it came off that way, I really didn't intend it to be, it was actually a self call out because I actually never learned as a child to sit with my inner feelings. I attribute that to being more sensitive and probably more intelligent than my siblings and acting as a buffer for my parents and basically only ever wanting to make other people happy, I never developed an inner world like other kids do.

Also I noticed... yoga, travel, art, those are still external. Even meditation can be if you approach it from a standpoint of like... one that is about forming your ego around it rather than being present... not sure if this makes sense. Like you can approach anything from a negative or place of wanting to 'fix' yourself, which ruins the experience imo. For me I would ruin things that were supposed to be fun because I would tell myself I should do this because it's good for me.

That being said, there are really low days still when I will feel absolutely nothing, I will think to myself... if this psychological pain is so intense, why should I keep going? I don't have answers for that. I genuinely just have to make it through the day. I understand that with the pressures of a family and kids, it's not one of those things where you can easily tap out, medication makes sense for that. I was just trying to share how I feel because honestly for me there isn't anyone in my life who I can relate with on this deep of a level... of these feelings, and it's really alienating in itself.

New comment by gh0stcat in "Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts"

gh0stcat — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 05:42:56 +0000

For what it's worth, I have dealt with pretty severe depression for most of my adult life. I am only starting to have periods of coming out when I realized that most of depressed feelings come from a place of ego. I have an identity of who I am and what I like, and I seek things in the external world which might provide meaning for me. For me, it's because I always sought value from the things around me, rather than believing that I am already enough. Every single day, I have to beat down my instincts that tell me that I am worthless and remind myself that there is more beauty in the world and it's actually absurd that I am letting society tear away from me my natural instincts to want to live and enjoy life. You have to really sit with these feelings though... like really really get to know your voice vs the internalized societal voice. I have developed "tests" that help me discern which voice is which, but it has helped a bit. Also working out and taking care of your body is a bonus, and just taking pride in like... doing things to lead a peaceful life is underrated. Hope you feel better.

New comment by gh0stcat in "Boom, bubble, bust, boom. Why should AI be different?"

gh0stcat — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 23:08:12 +0000

Only for the most basic of requests. I have interacted with a fair share of AI front loaded customer service chat portals and they are often misleading, sending outright incorrect info (telling us that the dev team would work on it even when they weren't going to) and I almost always just want to talk to an agent. Yes, it's a good first layer to prevent people who haven't even bothered to read any FAQ or informational pages, but it's not doing real customer service work.

New comment by gh0stcat in "210 IQ Is Not Enough"

gh0stcat — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 15:42:16 +0000

I tend to agree, most platitudes are less impactful simply because your mind inserts what it already knows/autocompletes the phrase meaning because it's something so commonly heard. I read it as something like... you have enough resources to lead a life that has prosperity relative to the limited faculties of a human organism. That seems less catchy, and if you're too literal in your phrasing in writing, then you get the opposite problem where the reader limits their thinking to just what is written. Do you come to a different conclusion?

New comment by gh0stcat in "210 IQ Is Not Enough"

gh0stcat — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 15:28:13 +0000

I sort of relate. I suspect the misplaced confidence one can develop from early successes in one's career eventually manifests as a lot of beliefs needing to be unlearned later in life (especially when facing challenges requiring resilience). I think I am a better person for it (and that is the point).

New comment by gh0stcat in "Agentic pelican on a bicycle"

gh0stcat — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 00:41:44 +0000

YES, and the sad truth is that the only person who can write good, simple code is likely the one who doesn't need an AI helper. ;(

New comment by gh0stcat in "[dead]"

gh0stcat — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 02:03:32 +0000

The bubble was the friends we made along the way.

New comment by gh0stcat in "It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts"

gh0stcat — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 18:40:10 +0000

This is such a good idea, the ultimate solution is connecting the furbies to CI.

New comment by gh0stcat in "Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division"

gh0stcat — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 19:13:12 +0000

Every time I see news like this, I just try to focus more on working on things I think are meaningful and contributing positively to the world... there is so much out of our control but what is in our control is how we use our minds and what we believe in.

New comment by gh0stcat in "ChatGPT Atlas"

gh0stcat — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 17:37:15 +0000

The thing I find the most funny about all of these demos is they outsource tasks that are pretty meaningful ... choosing where to hike, learning more about the world around you, instead, you'll be told what to do and live in blissful ignorance. The challenge of living life is also the joy, at least to me. Plus I would never trust a company like openai with all of my personal information. This is definitely just them wanting greater and greater control and data from their users.

New comment by gh0stcat in "JustSketchMe – Digital Posing Tool"

gh0stcat — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 13:43:04 +0000

haha this was mine as well, would love to see some recommendations where people are getting some nice models to draw from.

New comment by gh0stcat in "iPad Pro with M5 chip"

gh0stcat — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 14:31:30 +0000

I mean yes, but if you have an incredibly impressive machine compared to SOTA 10 years ago just lying around, I'd have fun with that too. :) Plus you can use it for more "practical" stuff like logo design or editing or even just note taking... I wanted to provide some examples of not just youtube machine.

New comment by gh0stcat in "iPad Pro with M5 chip"

gh0stcat — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 14:11:40 +0000

You could consider getting into drawing/design. They compete incredibly well against the display-based tablets made by wacom, especially these days where you can also do 3d and animation in procreate.